Composition and Content
Drummer Danny Carey sampled himself breathing through a tube to simulate the chanting of Buddhist monks for "Parabol", and banged piano strings for samples on "Reflection". "Faaip de Oiad" samples a recording of a 1997 call on Art Bell's radio program Coast to Coast AM. "Faaip de Oiad" is Enochian for The Voice of God.
"Disposition", "Reflection", and "Triad" form a sequence that has been performed in succession live with occasional help from various tourmates such as Mike Patton, Buzz Osborne, Tricky, and members of Isis, Meshuggah, and King Crimson.
The title track, "Lateralus", incorporates the Fibonacci sequence. The theme of the song describes the desire of humans to explore and to expand for more knowledge and a deeper understanding of everything. The lyrics "spiral out", refers to this desire and also to the Fibonacci spiral, which is formed by creating and arranging squares for each number in the sequence's 1,1,2,3,5,8,... pattern, and drawing a curve that connects to two corners of each square. This would, allowed to continue onwards, theoretically create a never-ending and infinitely-expanding spiral. Related to this, the song's main theme features successive time signatures 9/8, 8/8, and 7/8. The number 987 is the sixteenth integer of the Fibonacci sequence.
"Eon Blue Apocalypse" is about Adam Jones' Great Dane named Eon, who had died from bone cancer.
The track "Mantra" is the slowed-down sound of Maynard James Keenan gently squeezing one of his cats.
Read more about this topic: Lateralus
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